If you've ever shopped around for a new furnace for your home, you know how confusing it can be. After all, how many times during your life do you replace your furnace? Once? Twice, maybe? Gone are the days of 50% efficient furnaces when half of the energy consumed by the furnace heated your home and the other half heated the great outdoors. Also gone are the days that you could replace your furnace for under $2,000.
For today's technology, with furnaces reaching upwards of 98% efficiency, replacing your furnace can sometimes reach upwards of $7,000. If you're spending that amount of money, shouldn't you make sure that you are getting the efficiency that you paid for? Of course. So here are some tips to ensure that your furnace investment does what you want it to.
Tip #1
Ensure that you get a 2-pipe system. By this I am referring to the vent pipes attached to the new furnace. One pipe is for the exhaust, the other for the air intake used by the furnace for the combustion process. With a two pipe system, the furnace draws cold, unheated air from the outside, uses it to burn with the gas, then exhausts the waste products back outside through the second pipe. With a one pipe system, the air drawn into the furnace for the combustion process is drawn in from your home and then exhausted outside - air that you have already paid to heat.
Remember, the efficiency rating of your furnace only refers to the efficiency of the internal operation of the furnace itself, and not to the overall efficiency of heating your home. You're wasting a lot of heat and money without having the second pipe. A 92% high-efficiency furnace with only one pipe can cost you as much to heat your home as it would with a mid-efficient furnace rated at only 85%. Why would an installer only use one pipe? Simple. It easier to install thereby saving installation time, its less expensive due to fewer material costs and the consumer doesn't say anything as they too often don't realize the negative implications of only having a single pipe.
Tip #2
Do not over-size your furnace. Bigger is not better. In fact, it's worse when it comes to efficiency. If a furnace has too much heating capacity it can heat the home too quickly thereby never running long enough to reach its proper operating temperature. Think of this in terms of how your car operates before the engine is fully warmed up on a cold morning.
What is the proper size? Won't my furnace installer know? Yes, but many times I have seen installers sell the highest profit furnace instead of the most suitable one. Here is a rough formula that you can use at home. Every furnace has a rating plate on it where it states the BTU input. If, for example, your furnace's rating is 80,000 BTU and has an efficiency of 50%, then the heat input into your home is 50% of the 80,000 BTU's, or 40,000 BTU's. If the new furnace you are considering is 95% efficient and has an input rating of 50,000 BTU's, then the 50,000 BTU input results in 47,500 BTU's of heat input into your home (50,000 x 0.95). That's comparable to the old, 80,000 BTU furnace.
If you are being offered a furnace that does not have a BTU output calculation that is relatively close to the BTU output numbers of your current furnace, make sure that you get a logical answer as to why. Sometimes there are valid reasons for this. One reason that you may be offered a lower BTU output furnace is if you've done window or insulation upgrades and the home now has less heat loss and there needs less heat input.
An informed consumer is the best type.
Visit us at http://www.completeheating.ca.
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